


In the dark

by Stayontherooftop



Series: Know No Shame [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Sex, F/M, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 12:36:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12132648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stayontherooftop/pseuds/Stayontherooftop
Summary: “Silver bashes Dufresne’s head in one night, and Flint meets him, skull and blood still coating his stump. They sit together in his cabin before Howell can be brought there, and Silver tells him of how he has met the darkness, and of how good it feels. It chills him, to hear the rawness of Silver’s voice admitting that into the night. Silver fixes him with that look, and in that momentSilver knows him, understands him more thoroughly than anyone ever has.He is a man possessed when he takes Silver’s hand, grips it tightly in his own, and brings the knuckle to his mouth. The kiss he presses there burns, and Silver looks at him, eyes dark and knowing as he does, face unreadable as it always has been.”John Silver enters his life.





	In the dark

He doesn't even notice him when Gates asks him to let him join the crew, just agreed near instantly. He was sick of Randall’s cooking as much as the next man, and good meals would be in his favor against Singleton. It's only when he finds out that he has the map that he truly gets a good look at the man.  


He wants to kill him, to flay him alive for hindering his progress when he corners him in the wrecks. But he's learned to bide his time, and for now he needs Silver’s mind.  
“ By then, we might be friends.” Says Silver, with a too cocky, confident grin, and he can't help himself, he grins back, baring his teeth. He wants to kill him, but there is something amusing about this conniving fuck, mind scheming fast enough to be near go-lucky. 

Silver doesn't occupy much thought for a while, an irritating, ingratiating shit. Then Hal Gates chokes out his last breath under his arms, and he's swearing and apologizing, near tears, the self loathing already consuming him. He has no time to grieve, to feel true remorse or hate even before Silver bursts in and sees the body, and soothes him till he has a scheme..

He's a permanent, incompetent, slimy thorn in his side, a burr he can't brush off. Silver is dead set on clinging to him like a lamprey even when little indicates the odds are in his favor, from the Spanish beach to the Man o’War back to the Walrus, Dufresne still in command. It is odd, surprising to find a near stranger who is ready to fuck him over at a moment's notice, have so much faith in him as he has in himself. It's not faith, of course, of him as a leader, a beacon of wealth and glory and raw freedom, but of his capabilities in seizing that gold. That’s what he tells him, and Flint can sense that he's not lying, but still there is something smoothly hidden underneath. 

He supposes that Silver has indeed bet on the right horse, as he pulls his coat back on, still warm from Dufresne’s body and sits himself back in the captain’s chair. Why, in that moment, is of little matter to him. So long as Silver is useful, he tolerates his presence. And he certainly makes himself useful even after the map in his mind becomes common knowledge that is evident to all. 

Flint is quietly amused when Silver staggers back to him and spits out blood, and he is quietly impressed when the men begin to listen, fall trance to that voice and rhythmic stomp. In a rare moment, he realizes that he and that, self-centered, flippant creature have something in common; they are impossible to keep down. 

Later, in the midst of a war when their minds are intertwined in a way that he could never expect, he thinks more of Silver the man. 

There is something in the single-minded determinedness that would have allowed him to have been cajoled into taking a man of war with Flint, in diving into the depths to save what he believed to be his only means to the gold. Greed is a powerful drive, but it's capricious. Silver is not that. Beneath the slippery, grinning veneer there is something that only Flint manages to detect, and only after Silver tells him, quite matter of factly, that he gave back his share of gold. It is desperation. 

For what? Gold can be used for more than whores and rum and dice, even more than transforming an island into something good, something better. It can buy survival. It can buy freedom. He thinks back to when Silver had his leg and he was a mystery that Flint had no interest in unraveling but simply using as a tool. The most genuine thing he ever expressed was exhaustion. Exhaustion from this life, the sea, blood and schemes and a hungry stomach and bruises and beatings. From what else, he never found out. 

Miranda and he clash again and again, and when he looks at her he sees that she's abandoned this plan, her husband’s legacy, and it hurts and angers him more than anything has in the years they have lived together. She tells him that he must let England forgive him for a future they could have, and that he is mad with rage, ashamed still of Thomas and fighting to forget that. She's wrong. His shame, his inhibitions, his mercy all died with Thomas.

He sees hope again in Miranda’s eyes when he reveals to her his plan to bring Abigail Ashe back to her father in hopes of seeking conference with him, of regaining an ally. It lights her features, a steely resolve sets her jaw, and the exhaustion momentarily disappears, replaced again with determination. When they see Abigail, they both melt. Nearly ten years melt away, and he sees Miranda now more fully, the Lady Hamilton thrust into a life of hardship like one has never known, but she's still there, the kindness, the vestiges of dignity and grace. Nothing could take that away. He is cautious around Abigail Ashe, but seeing her he remembers the little girl who Peter brought around once, who Miranda taught simple scales on the harpsichord and Thomas who danced with her when she tired of it and let Miranda play, who looked at him with wide-eyed awe and fear until he lets her tries on his hat. She climbs on his shoulders after that, and he parades her around the room as she barks commands intermixed with strange nautical jargon (to the port starboard, you barnacle captain!), some rolled up sheet music Miranda gave her serving as her spyglass, much to the resounding amusement of the room. Not much got done that day.

She is too young to remember much of this, this pale, dirty girl before him, yet despite this he is cowed by her, reverent of this relic of what could've been. She is cautious of him yet polite, which he expected but still strangely wounds him. He pays attention to her despite everything the following weeks brings, and finds that she is now a quiet, dreamy-eyed, romantic underneath the wariness, the anger, the knife he gave her as a way to garner trust that she now keeps under her pillow, one hand near it when she sleeps, according to Miranda. A girl forced to grow up too fast too brutally, like he was, despite being in his thirties when they took Thomas away from him. They rarely speak, and when they do it is polite and brief unlike her whispered conversations huddled next to Miranda. But he begins to love her, respect and admire her, from far away.

She saves his life, but she cannot save Miranda’s when Peter betrays them a second time. Neither can he. He meets Miranda’s dead eyes, blood trickling down her forehead, and he feels it again, the hollow, confused emptiness, followed by a grief like a wave and then anger, seething, burning darker than anything he has known, and he knows he will raze Charlestown when he feels it. Abigail's diary buys them time when he is tried, and there is something almost comedic about his sworn enemy here to defend him after chasing him across an ocean, armed only with the diary of a seventeen year old girl. Then they raze it to the ground. Peter Ashe begs for mercy, for forgiveness, until he chokes up blood as Flint’s sword wrenches in his gut. Hope for Nassau, for civilization, for Thomas’s plan dies with him. All that is left is rage, dark and unsoothable.

He returns to find Silver a sweaty, moaning feverish mess, half of a leg missing. Even within his grief and rage, he feels a pity for the man and a growing respect. Silver floats in and out of consciousness in the next few weeks, deliriously crying and calling out names that don't belong to any of the crew or any of the whores at the brothel.  
“ Tommy!” He gasps awake one night, eyes glazed as Flint turns to look at him from his desk. “ Tommy don't make so much noise, or the father will hear you. “ And then later, hoarse and near sobbing. “ I can’t. I can't. Please no. Please no.” Whispers interspersed throughout the rest of the night, mumblings like “ Ada, take the knife and get out.” And “ I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” or almost humorously, “I’d appreciate my breeches back, thank you very much.”  


They suffer in the same room, their minds turning miles apart, but Flint in some way, finds comfort in Silver’s presence almost, knowing that someone else here is undergoing a pain so deep that it is unfathomable to others. Besides that, he forgets the man is there as he plans to wage his war. 

He tends to him when he remembers, late at night when the crew sleeps and he doesn't want to wake Howell unless it's absolutely necessary.  
One night in a fit Silver gasps, wakes up wide-eyed, and turns to him, and in a fit of horror, yells and attempts to get off the bed and flee, only to fall onto the floor and scream in pain and in horror as he rediscovers his stump. Men come running from the barracks, nearly a crowd, and nearly break down his door before Flint can soothe him long enough to corral him back to bed.  
“ Get going.” He snarls at them, only allowing Howell to pass. “ This is not a fucking show.”  
Silver for a second recognizes him as he pulls a chair to sit by the bench and watch Howell work.  
“ Flint.” He rasps out, his wild, frantic eyes focusing their gaze on him. “ Captain.”  
“ What?”

But Silver has no reply for him, just gazes at his face in horror and wonder. Then quietly, “ No, you aren't the monster. Not entirely. ”  
He has no reply to that, just sits with him as Howell finishes redressing the leg before ordering him keep him cool and give him laudanum if he asks for it, and to call for him immediately if anything else happens before leaving. Then he loses his mind in thought, letting the lull of the waves rock he and Silver back to sleep, the first dreamless night he has had in months.

Every moment he dreams of Miranda. In her grey, blood stained dress counseling him from beyond. At their cottage, sipping a good brandy as she launches some pithy quote at him, eyes gleaming as he laughs, the sound harsh with disuse in his throat. Crying as she tells him how they took away Thomas. Lobbing a fucking wooden cock at his head, kissing him softly for the first time in that carriage, lips curling into a smile. Telling him to kill Alfred Hamilton, her eyes dark with fury. Sketching him and smirking, giving him steady council as she tends to his wounds, face wretched in misery, in fury, a bullet finding its way into her skull, silencing her for the last time. He is losing his mind, and he cannot let her go. 

Council at Nassau is grim-faced, Rackham is smarmy, Max diplomatic, Bonny scowling and Vane lurking at the door way, yet somehow within the hours of debate, of scheming, they reach an agreement, quicker than they expected. Maybe it's the anger that he cannot find to direct at them despite his need for the gold, for now all of it lies against England. It doesn't hurt either, that Vane and he are now like-minded, in fact the whole enterprise is. So he returns to the sea, and begins to wage his war against civilization. Soon he has spilled more blood in a manner of weeks than he has in all his years as Captain.

Flint tells Silver when he regains consciousness the crew’s decision to elect him Quartermaster. Dufresne is gone. It draws a smile out of him, giving Silver this news, something he doesn't think he was capable of. The man smiles back weakly, yet it's uncharacteristically genuine, and he feels it for the first time, the understanding between them. 

Silver slowly spends more and more hours conscious, the fever leaving his system, and the crew ties ropes around deck to help him steady himself on board at Flint’s command, a task they take to with eagerness. He learns to walk again, mastering it first around the cabin alone so no one can see him struggle and lose his balance or yelp and hiss with each step, before venturing on deck. There, the men know better then to try to help him without his asking it, and Silver in turn doesn't need it often, taking to his leg quickly like he has to everything else. Or at least it would so seem. Sometimes Silver’s silence in his cabin is so loud it disturbs him from his own mourning, and he looks to him to find Silver looking up at the ceiling, his face utterly bleak. 

But he is determined to put up a good face in front of his men, and Flint knows that they are truly his men now, half a leg missing for their cause. It had been growing more genuine than he would've expected in the weeks during their voyage to Charlestown, but still he knew Silver would not hesitate to flee once the gold was in his hands. That isn't there anymore. Despite the cause of this shift, it's evident that he has begun to truly care for the men, to take his claim among them, above them. It is well reciprocated.

During breaks, men crowd his cabin. He often returns from below decks to find them lined near the door, and they disperse quietly as soon as they see him coming, but not before he hears glimpses of conversation and joking from inside, where Silver still rests, not fully recovered and often over exerted from his ventures to the kitchen to cook, the only duty Howell has allowed him to return to so far.  
Silver’s jovial voice floats from behind the door  
“ But instead he says, ‘Oh, you can keep the egg!’  
The men roar with laughter, which comes to a rapid halt as Flint enters.  
“ Alright gentlemen, get back your duties.” Silver says, good naturedly waving them away. The men grumble slightly before slapping him on the back, and even furiously shaking his hand.  
“ See you around, Johnny boy.”  
“ Stop by the barracks for a game of rummy when you're feeling game on that new sea leg, eh?”  
“ Don't forget I'll be wanting roast pheasant with gravy for dinner, Mr. Quartermaster.”  
“ Ah, your mother sucks cocks in hell, Timmy.” One reprimands the other sharply, but Silver just laughs. One man, Muldoon, Flint thinks, lets his hands linger on Silver’s shoulder for a second too long, and Silver and he grin at each other, before they all depart.  


Flint is dryly surprised that they all didn't line up to suck his cock as a parting gesture. Suddenly, he feels exhausted and annoyed. Christ, he could stand Silver though he wasn't fond of his presence at all hours, but he now he just wants the space to himself, free of the sweaty stink of the crew.  
“ Did you enjoy your gentlemen callers, Mr. Quartermaster?” He asks tightly, rearranging papers on his desk to make sure they haven't been disturbed.  
“ Oh, don't be jealous, Captain. I'll make sure none of them shy from their work.” Silver replies lightly, almost teasing, only irritating Flint further.  
“ Don't make a habit of using my cabin as a visiting parlour for your guests.” He snaps, voice harsh, before tossing himself into his chair, and angrily pulling it in tight just to hear the screech, before pointedly shuffling through some papers and maps on his deck. Silver gives him a curious look, but drops the matter.

Silver has begun his reign as quartermaster and returned to the barracks below deck once again when the incident happens.

The men are above deck. It is a slow night after several weeks of raids and his ravaging of towns that have hung pirates, and the men have chosen to spend it above deck playing cards and getting drunk on the last of the rum. Flint chooses to check the supplies below deck himself as Silver has yet to give him the report for the week, and he doesn't want to bother with finding him, seeing that face right now. He is among the grains when he hears it. A low moan from the small storage place they keep their gunpowder and weapons.  
He pauses, embarrassed (an emotion he is fully surprised to discover he can still feel) to have caught his men fucking, and makes to move on to check on the dairy goat when he hears Silver’s voice.  
“ Jesus, where did you-ah learn to do that with your mouth?”  
He freezes, and another voice, familiar but not identifiable among the chorus of shouts and commands he hears barked everyday, chuckles.  
“ Practice and dedication.” The man says hoarsely, a sound James recognizes from his time with Thomas, the roughness his voice would take from spending hours taking Thomas’s length as deep as he could.  


Silver moans again, a dark sound, and a jolt of lust shoots through Flint’s groin. Shame and disgust chases after it instantly. Miranda’s body had barely began rotting in the ground, and he stood half-hard listening for some demented reason as his quartermaster fooled around with a member of his crew.  
Silver’s panting now fills the space. “ An- hah- admirable trait- oh god, for an able sailor, Mr. Muldoon.”  
Muldoon.  
Something hits Flint, and he's not entirely sure what it is. Anger? Jealousy? What right has he for jealousy Why would he be jealous? Lust?  


They must've grown close.The first few days following Silver’s amputation Muldoon was one of the few men that hovered by Silver’s unconscious side constantly, much to Howell’s irritation, as well as his own for having his the privacy of his quarters intruded upon when all he wanted to do was collapse and grieve in peace. His hand was always over Silver’s, or clenched tight in it, he remembers, though at the time he didn't think much of it. Perhaps he should've.  
“ Oh fuck, I'm-” Silver groans loudly, and then he can hear the wet sounds of Muldoon’s mouth as it pops off Silver’s cock.  
Muldoon gives a breathless laugh. “ I hope that took your mind off matters.”  


“ Oh, that it certainly did.” Silver says, mischievous with his voice still dark with lust. “ Why don't you come here, let me repay the favor. I may not be able to get on my knees anymore, but I think my thighs may still do the trick.”  
Muldoon groans at this, and he can hear them kiss, can imagine Silver’s body pressed hot against Muldoon’s , but then hesitantly. “ Are you sure you can with-”  
“ Of course.” Silver replies, voice restrainedly light. “ Here, I'll balance against the wall.”  
The sound of breeches hitting the floor, and the sound of someone spitting into their palm, and then Muldoon groans again, and the sound of their skin slapping against each other fills the air. Flint is suddenly very aware of how heated his face is.  
Silver too grunts in pleasure. “ When we get back to some actual fucking land,” he pants. “ I'm renting a room and you're actually going to fuck me.”

Muldoon shouts in earnest, and he's heard enough, storming up the stairs, coat now blocking the tenting of his pants, not looking at the men who glance at him curiously before he slams the door to his cabin.  
He sits gingerly on his small bed, mind furious, staring down at the hard outline of his cock. He exhales. Why is he so angry? He is not Silver’s fucking owner, nor has he any claims on the man, or even interest in him sexually. Even if he did, that certainly wasn't something he was going to express. Why the fuck did knowing Silver currently had Muldoon’s spend drying on the back of his thighs cause such a reaction?  


He supposes, as he always has known, but does not have the time or energy or want to think about, that he is attracted to Silver. The dark hair tied back against the sweaty nape of his neck, the slender yet well muscled form he had been exposed to merely by having the man spend weeks in his cabin all flood his mind. 

But it doesn't matter. Admittedly, he has lusted after other men after Thomas. A young barkeep at the stinking tavern he first met Gates in, men from other crews that he didn't know the names of nor truly cared to learn, even Joshua on his own crew. It didn't matter, nor besides occasionally staring at them for a moment too long, did he even think of it. 

When he did, it was pushed back, ridden with shame. That was still there, churning in his gut, yet somehow his cock hadn't gotten the message and hadn't softened. Certainly he's never gotten hard over any of these men. Suddenly he’s tired, exhausted. He doesn't want to think about this anymore, this smearing of Thomas and Miranda’s memories, the sound of Muldoon’s cock slapping Silver’s balls or the way it had made Silver groan, about why or how this is happening, or about why he is so oddly irritated by it. He reaches into his pants and jerks himself off, pointedly thinking of nothing as he does. Even when he comes, it brings him no relief.

He's returned to sharpening his sword (not a euphemism, he thought to himself bitterly) when he hears the men outside cheer loudly.  
“ I'll join you gentlemen shortly. I've just got to report to the Captain our supply numbers that Muldoon and I summed up, and I'll be right with you.”  


An hour below deck only to return sweaty and disheveled with another man, and they don't question it. Jesus, he could tell them the sky is green and they would believe him.  


After Silver gives him the report, he pauses before leaving. “ Are you..alright?”  
“ Yes.” replies Flint brusquely, not looking up. “ Not that it is a matter of your concern.”  
He sounds like a jealous lover even to his own ears. Christ, there truly is something fucked with him.  
Silver is silent for a moment. “ Considering that the lives of the men I’m responsible for lay in your hands, I'm afraid it is.”  
He looks up, and Silver’s eyes are fixed upon him, his gaze intent. Concerned, and quietly determined.  
He sighs wearily, and leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. “ Return to your men then, Silver. They're waiting for you.”  
“ Aye.” replies Silver, but there are a few moments of pondering silence before he hears Silver thud out the door, it closing quietly behind him.

It is the first time Silver insists upon trying to work his way into his mind, his grief and secrets and his company. He does it boldly, not a single quaver in his voice, demands that Flint entrust him, allow him partnership, companionship beyond what they already have. He is desperate for it, Flint can tell, like he once was for that gold. But understanding Flint, knowing him, being privy to the turmoil of his mind, can't bring him freedom, and he has no interest in being used as yet another tool by this man to elevate his position within their world. 

So Flint hates him for it. He wants to slump into the stagnant air of the doldrums that now fills his cabin, and let his eyes glaze over. Maybe if he sits there long enough, ignore the complaints and the hungry desperation of the men as their muscles weaken and the angry, disbelieving looks Silver gives him when he tells him to cut rations and water supplies yet again, Miranda will come again. This time she’ll take him back to the Hamilton manor, and her dress will be that sleek green he always couldn't take his eyes or hands off of, and more importantly it will be free of blood. She will lead him by the hand, her face worn by the years but now free and joyous, and take him to the bedroom, the curtains open and light filling the open space. That will be where Thomas will be, waiting for him, kind and open and patient, and he will join them in their marriage bed, and the light will grow brighter and brighter and consume them all.

But he cannot die. 

They took a ship once that had a dog, a mangy beast that bit one of his men hard on the leg. The man had roared in anger, and kicked it and flung it across the deck, and strode over to kick it again and again, until Randall, armed with a butcher knife, screamed and launched himself at the man. It took five men to pull him off.

“ Just shoot it, for God’s sake.” He had said disgustedly, when he had found Randall and a guilty looking Howell crouched around the dog the next day, still quivering and growling and whimpering in pain. A few of its ribs was cracked, he could tell by the curve in its chest, and it hacked blood every few seconds. It also bit everyone who came near it, even Randall who crooned over it and fed it what even the men wouldn't eat. 

Gates had quietly told him to drop the matter. “ The men have set their minds on the matter, and it's too much trouble to stir trouble over that creature. Leave them to it, it'll keep them too busy off hours to guzzle rum. Not to mention, it might be a good stroke of luck, keeping a creature so stubborn on board that it'll eat Randall’s scraps to stay alive.”  
So he grumbled, but he let the matter be.

The next raid they had, he had assigned the man who had kicked that dog to be one of the first who boarded. He preened, not knowing that Flint had seen him stumble and nearly lose his balance last time he had swarmed a ship, barely dodging an enemy blade, saved only by a quicker member of his crew that had boarded first and slit that sailor’s throat.

It gave him a dark satisfaction to see that man later, throat cut wide open, eyes cold in a puddle of his own blood. He didn't want a mangy cur on his ship, nor did he want a wild sadist. 

The dog somehow sensed that its would-be killer was no longer alive, and grew stronger. It yelped with each twitching step it took, the crew watching it with bated breath, but it eventually managed to hobble over to the bowl Randall had left on the ground, and the men burst into loud cheering. It even grew friendlier, wagging its tail and giving sloppy kisses to whoever came near it with food, endearing himself to the rest of the crew beyond Randall. Hal even once saw Flint rub its belly and whooped for the rest of the evening, though he scowled and refused to admit it. When they reached Nassau, Randall tearfully gave the dog away to a wealthy whore who he had somehow managed to endear himself to, where it surely spent the rest of its days eating richer food than most and biting unsuitable clients.  
Odysseus walking away from the sea, he thinks with bitter irony as he recalls a conversation he once had with Eleanor at the beginning of all of this. 

He lies on that floor, tears burning his eyes, and thinks of that dog. Coughing blood and whimpering, yet ready to sink its teeth into any arm that came near it. In pain, but hobbling on.  
He needs to escape the doldrums, he needs to return alive and sea-wet, sword shining till it is coated with every ounce of civilized English blood.  
There is no place where he can escape the call of the sea, the wildness it demands of him to protect, so he will shoot every man who gets in his way, from ration thieves to town leaders to the very parliament and king himself. Not anymore. But he cannot die, for now he needs to kill. 

Silver rows out with him to the whale carcass, leaving weak, hungry men behind. He tells him of how he betrayed him, and then how he gave up his share of the gold. His eyes are slightly frenzied, desperate, but they are steady as they bore into his own. He is throwing himself head first into the only life he has now, a life he has been shackled into, with bitterness perhaps, but with determination. Flint realizes perhaps for the first time, how truly alike he and this man are, without disgust at himself. Two unstoppable forces the world attempts to rid itself of violently time and time again, desperate for an escape from the life that they have been thrust into, an escape that they have turned their backs against. 

They pull that thrashing shark onto the boat, and Flint stabs it and stabs it until it's done thrashing and they both collapse. They grin at each other, tired and triumphant. Neither of them would hesitate to kill the other, he knows, even as Silver, sated with shark meat, smiles blearily at him as the sails ripple in the wind. He doesn't care. Already he knows that they are of the same mind. Partners.

In the cage, the situation quickly grows dire, and yet Silver sees an opportunity. The way he looks at the princess, he can tell, is different than the way he should look at someone who could determine his fate. Silver tells him to leave the knife behind, tells him despite his loyalty to the crew, the loyalty he should feel towards Billy, presented with all evidence, he believes in Flint, in his prowess.

Maybe that's why he leaves the knife behind when he approaches the Maroon Queen, But maybe more than that, it's because he doesn't care about his life anymore. He is staying alive to destroy England, to spill her blood, to end the reign of misery and shackles that she grows strong on. Beyond that, there is nothing more. 

This is not what it would feel like, confessing before England, forcing himself to feel shame for loving Thomas, just to honor the ghost of his memory. It is the truth, it is the closest to the truth he has yet to present a potential ally. It is desperate, and fatalistic, but it is all he has left. In that moment he accepts fate as it will take him. And then he is grimly triumphant.

Allied with the maroons, the princess comes on board. Madi, he discovers her name is, and she commands attention with every step she takes.  


He meets Woodes Rogers in the shores of Nassau, and Thomas’s legislation, Thomas’s goals, are perverted in his hands. His name is perverted in his mouth, and it is solidified in his mind in that moment; he will die before he bends the knee to this man. It is an odd, yet unsurprising thing to know that Eleanor has abandoned Nassau. Abandoning a home where she lost a mother and was hated, where she spilled blood and loved and triumphed and lost. Where Flint, in a drunken haze, saw a himself in her, young and ambitious and determined, and kissed her, his business partner and near friend, on the forehead. Where he gently touched her arm in comfort after she is forced to choose between that very island and a lover. Nassau, which she loved despite all. But she, like everyone from Nassau, is a cockroach. An ugly sight to many, but able to survive most anything. It angers him more to discover that she has fallen in love with Rogers. 

Silver bashes Dufresne’s head in one night, and Flint meets him, skull and blood still coating his stump. They sit together in his cabin before Howell can be brought there, and Silver tells him of how he has met the darkness, and of how good it feels. It chills him, to hear the rawness of Silver’s voice admitting that into the night. Silver fixes him with that look, and in that moment Silver knows him, understands him more thoroughly than anyone ever has. 

He is a man possessed when he takes Silver’s hand, grips it tightly in his own, and brings the knuckle to his mouth. The kiss he presses there burns, and Silver looks at him, eyes dark and knowing as he does, face unreadable as it always has been. He's not the man he was, or maybe he is. Maybe this is the truth under that varnish, part of it at least, the anger and the desperation and the darkness. Maybe it took half a missing leg and a taste of power for Flint to see it. His lips leave Silver’s knuckles, and he strides out the door, the taste of Silver’s sweat and Dufresne’s blood in his mouth. They don't speak of it the next day. 

The next day he and Madi watch Dooley tell the tale of Silver, and knows that it is the same tale that is being told over the entirety of Nassau. Captain Flint returning from the dead, and Long John Silver, the one legged ruthless monster that was his quartermaster. He knows that he and Madi, a woman he does not know or trust but needs, is feeling the same primal thing that he himself is as they watch Dooley bring his leg down for the final stomp: Awe. Fear. Lust. Curiosity and satisfaction all at once. 

When they lose Vane, he mourns. An ally lost, Nassau now in fear, yet Billy promises something different. Still, another old face is cold in the ground. If you are enemies for long enough that you eventually become friends, and that's what he supposes Vane had become, though they never understood each other. The world feels more foreign to him, these faces that were seeming permanent facets of his reality, both good and bad, have begun to vanish. For the first time, he begins to feel time catch up to him, and he suddenly feels very old.

With Rackham and Bonny at his side, they prepare for the siege on Maroon Island, and Silver joins him as he begins to bury the treasure. He wonders what would've happened in the following months if he did not tell him that night. But he did.  
Silver tells him first of how he has guaranteed Dobbs’ loyalty, and there is a sureness in his voice, in his ability to make men malleable to his will, that Flint wants to scoff on principle. But there is no other choice, and Silver knows the mind of men and he wields power like few men he has ever known has, so he takes his word for it. They'll find out soon enough anyway.

But that's not what Silver is there for. He knows the path that they are hurtling down will lead to somewhere, exactly where he does not know, but somewhere still. So for once in his life, he feels like he owes someone the truth. Funny how it is, that that someone is the most notorious, slippery liar that he has ever known. Silver listens as he tells him about the Navy, about Miranda, about loving Thomas, about Peter Ashe and Hennessy and Alfred Hamilton, about betrayal and loss and vengeance. The words flow, though it is a story that he has never told, not truly from beginning to end. They march out of his mouth in steady succession. 

“ I am truly sorry.” says Silver.  
It's a dull surprise, despite everything. Silver has fooled with men, but love is another matter, one that few understand. Charles Vane was like this- the whores he took were men as well as women, but he refused matelots on his crew. Too soft, he claimed. Too weak.  
Yet Silver doesn't condemn him or his war, he only speaks of this path that they are hurtling towards together, and how it will end in one of their deaths. This, Flint is unperturbed by, almost amused. He's survived more than most men have. Silver is powerful in his own right certainly, but England and all its forces could not kill Flint. How could his Quartermaster?

“ This thing with Dobbs.” Silver says, easily. “ It will work. You have my word.”  
“ I'm not sure if that inspires confidence.” He retorts, but his tone is dryly humorous, surprising himself.  
Silver laughs. “ I suppose my word fluctuates in value as of late.”  
“ We’ll see soon enough.”  
They sit together in companionable silence, absentmindedly breaking it only to give detail on weapons and crew, and their cautious alliance, before he stands.  
“ Get some sleep. You'll need it for tomorrow.”  
He offers Silver his hand, and Silver takes it, grip warm and steady. He realizes then that he needs Silver- needs him in every sense of the word. And that, surprisingly, he likes him. The humorous wit that he once wielded constantly is still there, but it comes less often, and when it does, it almost rings genuine. But it is more than that. Silver has been a steady force by his side, whether he wanted him to be or not. Hunting sharks, his constant challenging of his treatment of the crew, telling him about the darkness, building an alliance with Madi, his steadfast faith in him despite all odds, it has been a crutch for him to lean on as he grieved. He would not be alive without him. 

He knows him, he knows Flint, his mercilessness, his tenacity, his fury, he knows the dry wit that Silver somehow manages to pull out of him, the moments of humanity. Touching his hand as he hands him a cup of water, the way he collapses behind closed doors, the kiss he pressed to his knuckles. He knows how to rein him in, and when to allow him to destroy. Silver does not sate the darkness within him like Thomas did, nor does he inspires it until it spirals beyond control like Miranda. He simply understands it, and with that, he knows more of Flint than anyone ever has. And now he knows the remains of James McGraw. 

Silver is right. Dobbs was steadfast in his desire to redeem himself to Silver, so steadfast he took a bullet for it. Silver and Madi meet his eyes from across the boundary. Madi sees the blood that has soaked into his clothes, permeated into his very skin, but Silver only looks into his eyes, his gaze unshakeable. 

They clean themselves in a stream with the rest of the men, and out of the corner of his eye he watches Silver, careful to stay close to the bank’s edge as to not lose his balance, wash the grime off his body, sighing with satisfaction as he does. Watches the water drip off his body. 

There is a strange air in the camp that night. Grim triumph, as some of the men from both the island and his crew drink and even laugh and speak of how the redcoats screamed and tried to run with a dark satisfaction. There is grief too, and anger, for the bodies from both crew and maroon that are being anointed, prepared for burial. He knows it is Madi’s doing, among with the other women of the island and Silver, to share this tradition with them. He didn’t expect it- he knew there were tensions among their men on board, despite the quiet eating and drinking interspersed with jeers and laughter that he now sees. But grief and triumph do strange things.

Silver makes his rounds quickly, speaking with Madi and her men and then their own crew, a hand on that man’s shoulder, an easy joke without the lightness, a respectful nod to a villager woman, before he heads to Flint. Silently, they walk toward the cabin, and he feels Madi’s eyes watch them retreat. It’s Silver’s hut they walk to- Flint often spends most nights on board with at least half the crew. 

He sits in the spare chair, and watches as Silver removes his peg with a grimace. The stump looks rubbed raw but there is no oozing or inflammation as there was before, he notes, pleased. Silver takes a small container from a small table by his bed, and opens it, the smell of freshly ground herbs filling the small room. He is reminded suddenly, painfully, of Miranda, how she ground herbs into pastes to put on his wounds after she cleaned them. He wants to take the container from Silver’s hands, and slowly rub the ointment onto his stump, till Silver eases himself into his hands with contentment. But he doesn't move, just watches.

Silver speaks in low tones about how many men they’ve lost between the maroons and their and Rackham’s crew, of their supplies. He nods, briefly interjecting with plans for their next course of action.

Then Silver looks at him.  
His eyes are a dark blue in this light, darker than Thomas’s were. But Silver is not Thomas.  
“ I spoke of you.” says Silver. “ Lost in opium, when they removed more of my leg. I remember little of it, but Madi told me afterwards.”  
The air is thick, and Flint feels frozen.  
“ What did you say?” he manages to say, carefully.  
“ She told me I spoke of how I believed you were more than a man. That you were someone I feared, whose mind you refused to let me know. That I was terrified and frustrated and fascinated. That I believed you would kill me. I didn't understand then.”  
He swallows, and meets Silver’s eyes. “ And do you now?”  
Silver hesitates. “ Yes.”  


He rises from the chair, and so does Silver, leaning on his crutch. He studies the other man’s face, but it is unreadable. Silver’s eyes are dark now with desire.  
“ It's illuminated now. The darkness. I can see a future in it, one that I didn't see before.” Flint’s voice is barely more than a whisper. “ A future emblazoned with your likeness. And with his. With justice. With freedom.”  
Silver’s hand is on his arm now, and the warmth radiating from him is like a brand.  
“ Thank you.”  


And then Silver’s mouth is against his, burning and rough with stubble. It is unexpected, it feels inevitable, it burns him. He is clutching onto Silver tightly, and Silver to him, and distantly he hears the crutch fall to the floor, and he is supporting Silver alone in his arms. Silver’s tongue forces its way into his mouth, slick and hot. They do not stagger.

So this is what they were hurtling towards, he thinks, a shiver running through his spine as Silver feels his hands over his body, over what lies underneath. Silver breaks free, and presses kisses to his neck, and he shivers again. He hasn't touched another man like this in so long. He has not wanted another man like this, needed him, in so long.  
“ Will you fuck me tonight?” asks Silver, voice low and raspy with need against his ear. He groans, and grabs Silver hard, and kisses him fiercely, and Silver does the same, tongue burning as it slides into his mouth.  
“ Yes.” He mutters. “ Yes.”  
He pushes Silver down onto the chair and kneels, and despite the creak of his bones, it feels good. It feels right, as he buries his nose into Silver’s trousers, mouthing the outline of his cock. Silver inhales sharply as he undoes his trousers and draws Silver’s cock out. It's hard and dark, and Flint instantly sinks his mouth down onto it, and Silver moans, low and reedy. 

Years after the war, they sat together on the porch of the house he lives in with Thomas.  
“ Why did you touch me that night, after our first battle? Why did you want me?” asks James, and his voice is quiet but without fear.  
Silver takes a long time to find the words.  
“ Because you were a force to be reckoned with, from the moment I knew you.” says Silver finally.  
“ And then you let me in, and you shared yourself with me. You let me know you. Because you taught me to give a damn about something other than myself-again, and showed me how that could determine everything. How it could ruin you. When I lost my leg, you taught me how to regain power beyond it. Because you took me.”

He’s savoring every inch of Silver, sucking on the tip without stop, pressing his tongue to the slit to lick at the saltiness that spills from it. Running his tongue along that length, before taking all that he can into his mouth. He's moaning loudly, barely muffled by Silver’s cock, he can't control it. He hasn't taken a man in his mouth in ten years, hasn't felt the pleasure of the weight on his tongue and the taste in his mouth and the deep resounding groan. And this is Silver whose tense thighs he are buried between, who shares his mind and understands without judgement, Silver’s rough hands that now grapple at his head fruitlessly, and who sounds like he's coming apart on the spot with each high moan. Silver who smells of sweat and fire and gunpowder.  
“Flint,” pants Silver. “ Oh god, you feel so good..”  
Flint moans at this, more a primal reaction than anything, and bobs his head up and down with eagerness. Silver cries out then, and his hips jolt causing Flint to choke as he comes down his throat. He swallows in satisfaction at the taste of Silver. Flint lets his cock drops from his mouth, and looks up at his quartermaster. Silver gazes down upon him, jaw slack and eyes sated yet dark and hungry still. His hand finds Flint’s jaw, and Flint rises as if in a daze, and they kiss fiercely.  
“ You taste like me.” Silver says, breathless and curious.  
He takes Silver’s face in his hands. “ I've tasted of worse.”  
Silver’s smile is slow, pleased and Flint cannot help but smile back. His heart thuds rapidly in his chest as Silver presses a kiss against his jaw.

“ Help me to the bed.” says Silver says, and so he does, Silver’s arm tossed about his shoulder as they hobble together, before he slowly lets Silver down. On the bed, Flint leans over him again, and kisses him hard, on the wiry muscle of his chest as he pulls off his shirt, the dark hair above his cock as he pulls off his trousers. Slowly, he spreads his legs and presses kisses to the soft flesh of his thighs, and Silver sighs, satisfied and then whimpers, as Flint begins to suck on those thighs.  
“ Flint, Christ.” Silver mutters, teeth gritted, and Flint looks up.  
“ James.” He says, soft but firm, before pressing a kiss to his hipbone. “ My name is James.”  
“ James.” says Silver, turning the name over in his mouth. “ James. James, can you hurry up and fuck me please?”  
It startles a rusty laugh out of him.  
“ Impatience is not a trait particularly esteemed in quartermasters.” He replies teasingly, pulling apart his cheeks slightly sliding a finger against Silver’s hole. It clenches to the touch, and Silver whines.  
“ May I remind you then-oh fuck- that dallying about is not one esteemed in captains?” Silver retorts, his voice hitching mid sentence as Flint takes one of his balls into his mouth softly and sucks. He releases it with a pop, and smirks at Silver. He feels alive, on fire with Silver’s taste in his mouth.  
“ I think you'll find, Mr. Silver, that an occasional dalliance can be quite worthwhile.” And then he licks a stripe from Silver’s balls to his hole, and Silver yelps, hand grabbing again at his head. 

Flint slowly, carefully laps at his hole, silently blessing the fact that they washed in the creek after the battle, before plunging his tongue into him. Silver moans, startled as Flint noses at him again, licks careful circles around his rim, before once again fucking his tongue into him. Silver jolts.  
“ Oh fuck. Oh fuck.” He gasps, and Flint redoubles his efforts, moaning as Silver twitches and bucks and whimpers, thrusting hard against Flint’s mouth to fuck himself on Flint’s tongue till Flint’s buried deep in his hole and his nose digs into the space just below Silver’s balls. It's so good to feel, to see him squirm and groan against his mouth, to cry out, ruined as Flint gives him pleasure. It's been so long since he's made another feel good in this way, to make anyone lose themselves in this way, desperate for his touch. He feels his cock tenting in his trousers, hard and swollen and leaking. He wants to be inside Silver, to fuck him, to join bodies as they have joined minds, to sheath himself inside that tightness and make him cry out.

He pulls himself away from Silver’s hole, and Silver looks up at him bleary and hungry. He rubs his hole again gently and Silver’s mouth falls open.  
“ Have you done this before?”  
“ Yes.” His voice is a dark rasp, and when he looks up at him Silver turns away, his face pained. “ We don’t-“ “ No. Don’t stop. Please.” 

Silver pulls him up and as if in a trance, Flint clambers onto the bed and into his lap, and they kiss again. That rush is still there, that chill down his spine of disbelief and pleasure, as Silver groans into his mouth and licks at him hungrily. They pull apart.  
“ I'm getting impatient again.” murmurs Silver, taking Flint’s hand to his cock, and Flint strokes him, enjoying the weight of him. Silver presses open mouthed kisses against his neck, and pulls up his shirt till he can slide his hands under it and feel him, before pulling it off entirely. He can't help but let his mouth fall open at the feel of those burning, rough hands on him.

Thomas's hands never felt like that, only warm and soft against his body. But Silver is not Thomas, he is like no man he has yet to meet, he is something else entirely and he is continuing to become something even more.  
And Flint needs him like he needs air.  
He presses his forehead against Silver’s, takes in the sensation of Silver’s hands firmly gripping his hips, pressed against his arms. They look into each other’s eyes. There is no hesitation or doubt in Silver’s eyes, there rarely is these days, only lust. But what does Silver see?  
“ I'll get the oil.”  
Silver smiles. “ At long last.”  
“ You're not done being patient.” He remarks, getting up to move to the lamp and the vial next to it.” Especially if you've never done this before.”  
“ Well. I'll just trust you to be pragmatic and efficient as you always are then.”  
Flint snorts.  


He's between Silver’s legs soon enough, gently pushing his legs apart wider, before coating his fingers in oil.  
“ Wait.” says Silver suddenly.  
He looks up.  
“ You're still wearing too many clothes.” Silver’s eyes roam over him, wanting.  
He hides a smile as he shucks his pants and underclothes. Being wanted in this way has grown unfamiliar, but he rediscovers it still feels incredibly good. 

Once again repositioning himself between Silver’s legs, he rubs his hole till it's slick, before slowly pressing in.  
Silver inhales sharply. “ Breathe.” he instructs him, and Silver does, gripping Flint’s shoulders tight. He bows his head to lick at the top of his cock to keep it from flagging as he prods at Silver, crooking his fingers till he finds that spot in him. Silver watches him, eyes open and curious, until Flint crooks his finger again, and Silver bucks with a shout of surprise.  
He lets Silver’s cock slide out of his mouth, and looks at the panting, wide-eyed man above him.  
“ Do- do that again.” Silver gasps.  
He smiles, and resumes his ministrations, sliding another finger in, scissoring them apart to open him, only rubbing that spot within him occasionally to see him jolt.  
Soon, he believes Silver is ready, and so does the man below him, by his heated look and moan of anticipation as Flint removes his fingers. Flint kneels above him, and Silver spreads his legs wider and pushes his arse up, and Flint bites back a moan at the sight of him. He leans over him, his slick cock hard, before slowly pushing in.

Silver groans. “ Christ. You really are going to be my end.”  
He huffs a laugh, before thrusting into Silver sharply. They both moan at that, and Flint pulls them closer, Silver wraps a leg around his back, and he feels his stump pressed against his side as well. Joined at the seam.  
He fucks into him desperate and steady, Silver’s eyes hungry and glazed as he does.  
“ You feel so good.” Flint rasps, body trembling as that tightness clenches around him. His head falls into Silver’s neck, and he groans.  
“ That’s it.” pants Silver. “ God, James.” Flint groans again, losing himself in Silver, and presses a sloppy kiss to his mouth. It feels dark. It feels free. It feels close, utterly close. It is the absence of loneliness.  


Flint fucks into him harder, wilder, and Silver moans with abandon, his eyes glazing with pleasure, but not breaking from his own gaze. His breathing is harsh and ragged, and his hands cling to Flint, feeling him over. He knows. He knows what this between them is, just as Flint does. He rams into Silver, and his quartermaster jerks with pleasure.  


“ Oh fuck.” moans Silver wildly. “ Oh fuck.” His nails dig into Flint’s shoulder, his other hand going to his cock to pump it. Flint sees the cum bead at the slit, and Silver clenches around him, twitching, and Flint fucks into him erratic and rough, sucking an open-mouthed kiss to the sweat of his skin. Silver’s hand on his cock is frantic, and Flint can feel the tremor before he hears Silver shout his name, before he clenches hard down into his cock, before he can feel the spray of cum against his stomach. Silver writhes against him throughout his pleasure, and hastily Flint pulls out. He jerks his cock once, twice before spending on Silver’s stomach with a muffled groan. 

And then they separate, breathing heavily. Eventually Flint unsteadily gets up, and grabs the nearest, cleanest looking cloth before clambering back to Silver, kneels between his legs. He wipes the cum from Silver’s stomach. When he’s done, he tosses the cloth to the floor and lies down again. They don't reach for each other, but the bed is small enough that the sweat-damp skin of their arms and legs lie against each other.  
“ How long has it been since you've done that?” asks Silver. “ With a man?”  
His voice is low, and Flint closes his eyes.  
“ Nine years.”  
Silver’s silence is heavy.  
“ Well,” he says, finally. “ That explains a lot of your behavior since I've met you.”  


Flint huffs a laugh, and Silver looks to him with a grin and he can’t help it, his laughter fills their hut, and Silver joins him, and the weariness leaves them for a moment. He’d never thought he’d miss it, but it's good to see some of Silver’s flippancy re-emerge. He reaches towards Silver and takes his hand in his, feels the calloused skin of his palms.  
“ Tell me about him.” says Silver softly. And so Flint does. 

“ He was..funny.” begins Flint. “ When I first met him, I thought he was the most naive man I had ever met. But he wasn't what I expected. He was the only man I've ever known that genuinely, above all, wanted to make the world a better place.”  
Silver’s eyes are steady on him, face unreadable, but gently he puts an arm around Flint’s waist.  
“ He told me of this preposterous plan, and there was an utmost sincerity, an utmost seriousness to how he believed in it. And I couldn't help but begin to believe in him. But there was a humorous wit underneath it all, this lightness that came and left so quickly in those early days that you could miss it if you blinked. I couldn’t resist trying to draw it out of him, to make him stifle a laugh or an exasperated sigh... One time I said something backhanded to one of his salon guests, and the man left the room in a huff. Thomas’s face just got pinker and pinker, and he kept clearing his throat and trying to move along the conversation, but then he looked at me with such mirth in his eyes that Miranda had to elbow me to keep me from bursting out laughing.”  


He takes a breath. Silver’s palm is hot against his stomach, his arm heavy over his waist, and it feels right. He lets his head sink against Silver’s shoulder.  
“ Bringing him pleasure was the best thing I've ever known. I’d take him in my mouth, and his would fall open and he would flush and run his hands through my hair.. he made these little noises..”  
Silver’s breath hitches, and his own is heavier, but he can't stop.  
“ I grew a beard my first voyage to Nassau, when they overthrew the governor. When he saw it, he made me lie on my back so he could sit himself on my mouth so I could suck on his hole till he came all over me. He tied me up once too with one of his cravats. I could've broken free at any time, his knots were worse than the most inexperienced cabin boy’s, but I let him fuck me till I lost myself in the feel of his cock, till he came and it dripped out of me.”  


He’s shuddering, and then Silver’s mouth is against his collarbone, wet with a hint of teeth, and he grasps at Silver, runs his fingers through the tangled curls that he didn't know he wanted to touch so much until now.  
“ I would win our fencing matches, and he would beat me at chess. Neither of us would ever let the other win. He bickered with me constantly over everything from pirates to politics to books, teasing and clever and kind. He made me question everything I had ever known, he taught me to be someone that I respected.  
I was a good man when I was around them, they brought it out of me when I didn't even know I was capable of it in the first place.”

The words have left him dry-mouthed and hollow, but the sensation of Silver’s palm pressed into his stomach is like an anchor. He's run out of words. He wants Silver to say something, but he doesn't, just rests his head against Flint’s.

“ I'm sorry.” says Flint cautiously. “ About Muldoon.”  
“ Oh.” Silver’s voice is flat. “ That was you that day stomping up the stairs, then.”  
“ Yeah.”  
“ Thought it was Dooley. I think he had a bet going with Joji.”  
Flint laughs quietly.  
“ I don't think many of the men knew, and the ones that did kept quiet. I think they understood.”  
Silver’s voice is heavy, and Flint presses a kiss to his forehead. The motion reminds him of the times he’s kissed Miranda in that way, of how he kissed Eleanor. It hits him, the grief of the many faces in his life that swarm his mind now, many of them distant and gone. There's so much chaos, and he has chosen it, but he is bone weary nonetheless. 

“ This war,” says Silver. “ is born of misery. The misery of Madi’s people, of those who bear Britain’s yoke, of Rackham’s and Bonny’s, of yours.”  
“ Yes.” His voice is wary.  
“ I don't know what will come of it. I don't. But I will not leave your side.”  
Silver turns to him, and his eyes are sad, but their fingers interlock. He smells of sweat and river water, and it's intoxicating.  
“ You believe that one of us will kill the other, that we will be each other’s end. That there is not enough room for the both of us in this world.” Flint reminds him, and yet his heart thuds in his chest.  
“ Well, yes. But then again, when have we been the kind of men that relent because of something as trivial as the promise of death?”  
He is unflinching, but his lips quirk upwards. Flint laughs disbelievingly, and Silver smiles, tired.  
“ It doesn't change anything.” Silver says softly.  
“This will be seen through. One way or another.”  
Flint kisses him then, with all the energy he can muster, and Silver returns it. He knows then that he will never be able to refuse this man, not truly. That he needs him.  
“ The men will stay up for the next few hours. Get some sleep.”  
So he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep with Silver’s hair tickling his face, their fingers intertwined.

He wakes up hours later, the camp around them now silent. His nose is buried in Silver’s hair, and his arm is tossed around his waist. Silver snores softly. He carefully untangles himself from him, and Silver curls up alone as he pulls on his breeches and shirt before heading for his ship in the early morning. 

Not much changes between them after that night. They are the same united force, their days preoccupied with strategies and supplies and tactics. Only now, Silver sometimes will look at him with this teasing look and there will be an undercurrent to his voice that’s hard to miss. He was put off the first time it happened. Being flirted with wasn’t something that he had experienced in a long time.  
“ We’ll need more of these muskets, and more powder as well.” Silver instructed the new bookkeeper, and then he glances at Flint, ever so briefly lips curved upwards. “ The bigger the load, the better.”  
He feels his face heat up, and he ducks his head to hide a smile. He can’t resist returning it.  
“ Make sure those sails are taught, gentlemen.” he instructs crewmen preparing the ship later that day.  
“The tighter, the better.” 

He meets Silver’s eyes, and Silver quietly laughs, eyes dancing.  
They spend their nights together occasionally, long hours poring over maps and talking of provisions and tactics. More often than naught, Silver will press him against some wall and kiss him, slow and fierce, allowing Flint to support him as he leans into him and wraps an arm around him, sliding his tongue into his mouth. Or Flint will gently press kisses into the nape of his neck or chest or above the hot flesh of his stump when Silver will allow him to apply salve there and massage those muscles till they relax.

Silver likes to suck him down with enthusiasm, his eyes meeting Flint’s the entire time till Flint comes down his throat with a groan. Flint watches as Silver comes undone with pleasure as Flint strokes his cock, and kisses him as Silver stutters out a cry and spills over his hand. More often than naught, this concludes their work for the night, and they wipe themselves clean before Flint presses a brief kiss to Silver’s forehead, his hand lingering on him before wishing him goodnight and returning to the ship.  
But sometimes they will both collapse into Silver’s narrow bed, intertwined with an almost unexpected tenderness, and they will chat idly, exchange stories and jokes. 

Flint tells him of exploits before Silver stepped foot onto the Walrus, of Billy fleeing “ Blackbeard” and her horde in terror, only a bedsheet around his waist, of Muldoon and Logan getting so drunk one time that they and Randall started a waltz on board, of Joji killing a captive prisoner for stepping on Betsey’s tail. Sometimes of little moments in the navy, or of his life with Thomas and Miranda when he can find the words.

Silver will give him tidbits of the crew as well, Joshua’s nightly watch over the miraculously resilient dairy goat, of Degroot’s silk pyjamas he managed to haggle from a woman in the village, how he caught some maroon men and the crew in a game of strip poker one night. He shares little stories from his own life, humorously dark enough to perhaps be true, like the butcher whose wife got so sick of him screwing the delivery girl that she chopped his cock off and ground it into sausages, a whore who would tell the funniest jokes before sticking a finger into your arse so you would learn to automatically chuckle whenever anyone else paid you the favor. 

But a good deal of them are false, but unlike the ones he tells the men, they are not about creating illusions of his character, but simply to entertain, so Flint is amused by them all the same, touched despite the falsehood. He listens to tales of men who snorted cinnamon on spice merchant ships in desperate opium deprived hazes and shrieked in pain afterwards, of drunken armwrestles with a giant, getting nearly stampeded by an elephant, and training a rat to fetch him cheese for when he was too lazy to get out of bed.

“You're full of shit.” He scoffs, grinning all the same when Silver tells him a tale of how a kraken once attacked a merchant ship he worked on, only for Silver to lead the sailors in a round of “ Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!” While pouring their own rum supplies in the water till it swam off, sated with drink and song.  
“ I'm full of shit? You’re a tough audience.” Silver exclaims, turning to face him. His fingers are intertwined in Silver’s hair with quiet fascination, and Silver’s hands have carefully slid to the inside of his thighs, squeezing the meat there.  
“ I wouldn't tell that one to the men. Even they aren't quite that gullible.”  


“ Don't begin to doubt me now,” says Silver, carefully pushing himself onto one knee to straddle Flint, pulling down his breeches. Flint watches Silver’s cock flushed and hard as he strokes it in his own hands, before Silver licks his palm and takes both of them in hand, and Flint sharply inhales at the velvet wetness pressed against him.  
Silver smirks at him. “ ..Or you'll begin to let your guard down.”  
“ Well,” Flint manages to force out. “ You've caught me at an inopportune time.” Silver laughs, and thrusts his hips, and the conversation comes to an abrupt halt. 

“ I want you to fuck me.” Flint says, voice low, and Silver’s breath hitches and he groans into Flint’s neck.  
It had been a long day. Rackham’s smarminess has been at an all time high, and Billy has been obstinate and taciturn at every turn, and after returning to meet in his cabin he wants Silver’s cock in him. It’s been too long, far too long, and taking Silver in his mouth is not enough anymore. He wants that slick burn and stretch, that shot of pleasure that his own fingers aren't bringing anymore. He wants it to be Silver that brings it to him.  


So Silver pushes him to the bed, and Flint lets him, lets himself succumb to this man’s power. He peels Silver’s clothes off him, lets Silver do the same to him, and spreads his legs. Silver kisses the flushed skin over his hips frantically, laving his tongue over his cock, and Flint moans quietly as Silver slips the head of his cock into his mouth. It's hot and sleek around him. Silver’s fingers wrap around the rest of his length that he can't take in his mouth, and begins to bob the length up and down slowly, and between the slickness and the slow rhythm of his hand, it doesn't take long for Flint to come down his throat with a strangled noise, Silver greedily sucking down the last drop, before instantly moving down to spread his legs further and cup his ass. 

He feels the scrape of Silver’s beard against his thighs then, and shudders with anticipation at what he knows will happen next. Silver is fucking him the way Flint had first fucked him, similar to how Thomas had first fucked him and how he had fucked Miranda. Forty years of heartache, of love spent and lost weighs down upon him, and his bones begin to ache yet again.

And then Silver’s breath is hot against his hole, and his tongue joins it a moment late, and Flint can’t help it, he squirms. It's been so long. It's been too long.  
Silver is hesitant and gentle, his tongue exploring Flint as his hands dig into his hips.  
“ Keep going.” begs Flint, thighs tensing at every hint of pressure Silver gives him. “ Please.”  


He has not begged, and especially not in this manner, in so long. It slips from him, the years, the man that he has become and constructed, as the words spill from his mouth. Silver’s eyes flicker briefly to his own, and Flint knows he understands, that he revels in this closeness. An ultimate conquest perhaps, for a beguiler skilled in unraveling men, separating them from their secrets if not in this way than another. But then Silver moans, and sinks his tongue past the ring of muscle there, and Flint gasps, unable to take his eyes off as Silver licks him open hungrily, around the rim of his hole, before plunging it into him again. Silver’s hips slowly rut against the bed, almost imperceptibly, and Flint moans at the sight of the pleasure Silver gets from this, and from the hot, wet slickness of Silver’s tongue against him prodding and licking. 

He wants Silver’s fingers and his cock, wants to lose himself in Silver fucking him, but his thoughts slide out of focus each time Silver laps at him hungrily. He can hear little noises come out of his throats distantly, short grunts and gasps that he isn’t even entirely aware of making.

He can't bear the pleasure. He doesn't want Silver to stop. But Silver makes that decision for him, pulling away suddenly, mouth slick with his own spit and eyes hungry.  
“ I’m going to open you up, and I'm going to fuck you. I can't wait any longer. But some other time, I'm going to lick you till you come against my tongue.”  
Flint pulls him into a kiss then, rough and wet and needy, and Silver gasps at his mouth and bites his lips, his hands feeling over every inch of his chest like he cannot get enough of him.  
“ You felt so good against my tongue.” Silver whispers into his ear, the lithe muscle of his body hot and sweaty against his own as Silver reaches for the lamp oil that now permanently resides at Flint’s bedside table. 

Flint groans as he feels Silver’s finger, slick with oil, breach him smoothly, filling him up, before beginning to curl. Silver’s finger is steady and without hesitation inside of him, exploring as he slowly fucks him open. Silver’s mouth is warm against his own, warm and encompassing, the rough of their beards rubbing together. But Silver is not content with his mouth alone, and quickly moves to his neck, rough and sucking and biting, before slowly he licks down to his chest, and Flint watches him, his hand tightly gripped against the muscle of Silver’s. And then Silver’s finger rubs over that spot of pleasure in him once, and then slowly again and again, and Flint’s hip thrust back against Silver’s fingers as he cries out hoarsely.  
Silver’s mouth separates from his skin for a second, and he looks rather pleased with himself.  
“ There we go.” he says, voice soft, slipping another finger into Flint, thrusting into that spot again. “ That’s it.”  


And then his mouth is hot against Flint’s nipple, and he jerks at the sensation, mouth falling open. Silver licks at it again and again.  
“ Fuck.” groans Flint, not able to contain himself anymore. Silver’s tongue against his skin, sucking now on his chest, his fingers inside him working him open, rubbing against that spot insistently. He feels himself quiver around the stretch of Silver’s fingers. It's so good, and he wants more, wants Silver in him. It's been so long. It's been so long and Silver is the first man he’s needed in this way, the first man to know him so completely since Thomas, and he wants Silver to know him in this way too.  


Silver slides his fingers out of him, and strokes his cock, the head dark and red, and if Flint didn't so badly want Silver to fuck him in this moment, he would not be able to stop from taking Silver into his mouth.  
“ Are you ready?”  
He meets Silver’s eyes, dark and hungry. “ Yes.”  
His voice is low. “ Fuck me.”  
And Silver’s mouth meets his again, searing hot, his tongue sliding into Flint’s mouth, and he groans, and Flint closes his eyes, and lets Silver take control. 

When Silver pulls off of him, Flint gets on his knees and spreads his legs, exposing his hole. It would be easier on his front, would be just as good and feel just as close, but he doesn't want to lose sight of Silver, not for a second.  
Silver moans at the sight of him, and Flint is aware of how vulnerable a position this is, but it doesn't bother him. Pride is not an issue between them, and there is no person in the world that he trusts more than Silver.  
He feels the blunt head of Silver’s cock against him, and then Silver is pushing in, his eyes wild and heavy with lust, his mouth dropping open. The stretch burns, but it's good, it's so good to feel full like this again. Silver slides fully into him, and groans into his neck. “ Oh my god.” pants Silver, desperately hard inside of him. “ You feel so good around me.”  
Flint’s breathing heavy now, but he pushes back against Silver’s cock despite the burn, and Silver whines. “ Go on then.” whispers Flint into his ear, pressing soft kisses into every inch of sweat soaked skin. Silver groans once again, and begins to thrust into him, slow and heavy. 

He builds a steady rhythm with each snap of his hips for the most part, sometimes he spasms and fucks into him in short rapid thrusts. Flint groans at the stretch of each thrust as he clings to Silver’s body, knees near his ribs, Silver hot and panting above him. “ Harder.” he commands breathlessly, and Silver moans again, before fucking him in earnest, quick, sharp thrusts that rub against that spot against him so well that he shudders in pleasure and grinds his hip back into Silver’s cock.  
“ Yes.” chokes Flint, losing himself in the visceral pleasure of Silver filling him, in the quick rhythm of Silver’s cock. “ Yes.”  
“ Christ.” moans Silver. “ James..”  
He knows Silver is close as his thrusts grow more erratic and spastic, his hips snapping almost uncontrollably. He tightens his grip around Silver’s shoulder. “ Let me ride you.”  


Silver’s mouth falls open, and it's so very good to make him look like this, lost in their shared pleasure. They both groan as Silver slides out of him, and Flint climbs on top, before slowly sinking down onto Silver’s cock. He gasps as it fills him so completely, how immediately it begins to leak as it presses against that spot of pleasure. Silver’s eyes are glassy, his hips straining not to twitch as Flint lets himself be filled to the hilt. They both groan as Flint slowly grinds down on him, feeling that girth fully. And then he slowly lifts himself up, thighs straining, before slamming down again, crying out as he does. John bucks into him as he does, swearing, fingers digging deep into Flint’s hip as he begins to ride him in earnest. He can’t help it, he whimpers each time Silver’s cock digs into him, filling him up so well. He’s sweating, hair on his arms raised, and Silver fucks into him each time he drives himself down. They move in tandem, Flint crying out with each thrust and Silver’s choked groans greeting him in return.  


“ James..” Silver whispers, wide-eyed, panting and twitching. Flint can feel his cum beginning to spill, and he fucks himself down on his cock. Their eyes meet, Silver’s dark with lust.  
“ Come in me.” whispers Flint, grinding down again, and Silver moans as he comes, hips thrusting hard into Flint. He feels his mouth fall open, and his eyes close as the slick pleasure of Silver fucking him where he has just spilled his seed fills him, and he takes his own cock in hand.  
“ John.” He gasps, calling out to the man below him. “ John.”  
It is not a name he has used before.  
The pleasure is too much, and he comes hard on Silver’s stomach, still dazed by the sensation of Silver’s cum sliding out of him.  
He opens his eyes, still panting, and looks at Silver. The man below him is flushed and sated, but for a second he glimpses a discomfort, a fright, in his eyes, and then it is gone, and Silver offers him an exhausted smile, his hand stroking Flint’s thigh. Slowly, Flint climbs off of him, and stumbles towards a rag on the table. Silver’s cum is wet against his thighs, and he wipes himself clean, before returning to Silver.  
A long forgotten ritual brought to life again.  
Silver, now seated on the edge of the bed, gently takes the cloth from him, and pushes him down again, and cleans his hole. He cannot help it, his worn cock twitches at the sensation, at the gentleness with which Silver cleans him.  
When they are done, Silver still sits at the edge of the bed, his body tense.  
“ Will you stay awhile?” asks Flint, and he knows that he is pleading.  
“ Alright.” says Silver finally, and he rejoins him beneath the covers. Cautiously, he reaches for Silver’s hand. For a second, he can feel Silver tense, before they intertwine fingers, warm and at ease, their grip tight as they drift off to sleep.

The preparation for the attack of Nassau grows more and more intense, and what little time they had for any sort of intimacy disappears. Silver remains utterly steadfast by his side, but besides the touches they exchange of men familiar with one another, they do not make contact.

Flint doesn't realize that it's because Silver has fallen in love with Madi until he sees her scream as he falls into the ocean.


End file.
